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Topic Review (Newest First)

10-01-2004 10:34 AM

Simo

Re: Oil on 2 plugs

Quote:

Originally posted by Fragzem Okay, simple question-- I searched the forums and only came up with people getting really BAD problems with oil and plugs, things like detonation and using octane boosters-- that's not my case.

When you're getting oil on a plug... (all my plugs get oil with my 75 SBC 350).. but 2 usually get it the worst. I would put those plug extensions on them to avoid this but... the headers don't allow that where I have the problem.

If I remember, oil on a plug is a simple problem meaning a gasket or a seal or something in the valve covers.. what is it again?

Thx!

if you get oil smoke on start up its oil leaking onto pistons (valve seals and guides) .thats a tell tail sign that its up top. if smoking and fowling plugs on warmed up running and compressions ok you have oil ring problems , If your plugs are oily and smell of petrol as well you have spark problems.. thats my thoughts,

10-01-2004 12:38 AM

docvette

Wow!!

Doc here..

Wow..you win...I thought I held the Long~in~the Text award...but you have me beat hands down...

Not mad (other than insane...) At all!

It's my Gene pool that needs a lifeguard!!

Thanks for the "More Details" you provided, It throws a different light on the situation...

Sounds like an engine that high mileage might be ready for rings / Valves soon..and it's starting to show up a little at a time..Do a full compression test and see what the numbers look like..`125 to 150 and your good for a while..

You might still want to do the stem seals...a good cheap stop gap on the oil consumption.

I thought you were talking about plug wire sets...that weren't working out...Sorry about that.

Save up some cash (throw any change in a jar or as I did, a Box, under $5 bucks every night...no matter how much it hurts!) For a new set of good 8 mm or better spiral core wires, plugs and a rotor...

you'll find your cash will mount up fast with the jar trick...like 2 or 3 paydays..I did that over ALL of last summer...in a Tupperware casserole box (the big one..like 1 foot by 2 foot.) saved up almost 1700.00 bucks when I dumped it on the bank guy...mostly $1 bills..The happy guy had to count it all...)

If you can, get rid of, (solve the problem) the anti Fowler's, probably the Seals will help to do that. Your not doing your idle / performance any favors and only forestalling the inevitable anyway...your fuel economy should go up with all 8 firing..properly!

My Vettes are:

1980, Daily driver..Bought from scrap yard for $1500.00, and restored into a daily driver, (the one in the avatar)

1978 Silver, bought as a parts car,

1978 Silver, Non California Smogger, not a streeter,

1978 Silver, bought from the first owner after a 25 year hiatus on blocks because of a blown water pump with 4000 miles on it, this one is for resto..rubber parts mostly..

81's were the first FULL production year out of the new Bowling greenPlant when Corvette moved the division there in 80..Those had "Weird" Bugs in them..AND they were the crossover to the CCCC confuser system for smog...from the CCC (1980) .

As For the tires, It just ain't worth changing them yourself (although it can be done) Rims today are made of alloy's that scratch, and burr when you try to "Horse" a tire on the rim, not like the old steel solid rim days..AND It's a LOT of work! Besides, your gonna want them balanced when your done, or your misfire won't bother you at all, you'll never feel it for the shimmy!

Usually a gas station with an old Coats 1010 will mount them for 5 to 7 bucks a tire (if it's a mom and pop, and your nice to them..)and balance for a buck or two more..Or try an "Old School" wrecking yard..they might let you do it for free..(especially if you buy a used tire or two from them!)

Doc

09-30-2004 10:32 PM

Fragzem

The doctor got angry at me!!! aaahh!!

lol

No, doc, it wasn't that kinda "fresh".... I couldn't afford that type of freshness....

Fresh for the engine I'm using to me meant things someone hadn't done to it for a while..... like.....

Head gasket, valve cover gaskets, flywheel, scraped a bunch of gunk build-up out from under the intake, repl. cast iron 2bbl intake with an aluminum 4bbl intake, new engine mounts, new distributor cap, plugs, wires, water flushed out, new dipstick, new oil cap, headers... many new things... as we are in the trade, we of course are tax exempt from the parts and get everything at aboult half of list, but I still spent upwards of 600 doing all the above and more..exhaust system not included as that cost 325.

This came out of a 1975 Chevy G10 van which had well over 200,000 miles on it... probably in the range of 220,000 to 250,000.

The van had fell apart around the engine, and I saw it as a great oppertunity as I knew the guy was going to "donate" it to charity, I instead asked him to "donate" it to ME! (knowing full well that at some point in the future I will definatley rebuild the heads and bore everything over, etc.. just can't afford it now, and when my plugs aren't fouled, it runs like a top.)

(Pulled the TH350 out of that van as well.... driving reckless I've been through 3 TH350's and the original 200C monte carlo transmission... this one has lasted a long time, and I believe it's original to the van)

As for wires, Doc... You've mis-interpreted me, but that's okay because sometimes I even mis-interpret myself..
What I meant was I couldn't find good ones around as in... laying around the garage... .. good as in.. good enough to make it run, and I ended up finding 2 from an old chrysler engine that was sitting in there and put them on whichever way I could get them on.. (it was pretty stupid to try and use cutting pliers to get a boot off a spark plug... and then I did it AGAIN.. cut 2 of them in 2 minutes.. STUPID STUPID idea lol.. we needed the garage so I had to find some wires to get it the hell out of there) --my wires never really went, 6 of them are the same wires from last November... it's just those 2 I had to replace because of a dumb idea.

As for the anti-foulers... I'm only using 2 of them so it's not that bad right now.... and I wouldn't want any more... in fact, when I get the valve seals done, as I will do, I am going to remove them as I believe I got lazy and just put them any old place as I don't get any oil build up on the passenger side of the engine anyway and that's where one of them is, and the other is in the #1 cyl and I don't think that's a trouble spot either.. just 3 and 5. #3 has one of those special anti-fouling plugs in it which seems to do okay for now, and #5 i keep changing.

Maybe I'm too picky.. lol.. It WOULD go unnoticed in any other car because I'm not behind the wheel of any other car.. lol... I used to have a miss on 3 cyl and couldn't tell the diff a few yrs ago... sometimes with an 8 at high speeds u really can't... --sometimes--

Now? I can hear, I can feel, I can SMELL 1 plug missing.. as it's doing now.. 1 isn't hitting right and I'm gonna have to solve that....

Thanks for replying though Doc!
Ever since my post about the 4bbl carb and its butteflies and secondaries.... I've always enjoyed reading what you write to me.

By the way, what year vettes do you own?

We've got a customer here who's a retired supreme court judge who is 81 yrs old and has an 81 corvette.... what a hunk of junk to be honest... that car, seriously, is in my driveway for repairs 3x a month!

I'm beginning to think he just leaves it here on weekends so he has more parking in front of the house for company.. hehehe.. I remember one time he bought those steel braided spark plug wires and never grounded them? that was a joke!

By the way doc,

I dunno if my problem is TOO bad right now.. once I get it running smooth, as I just did.. and probably woke all tne neighbors in doing so.... changed 2 plugs and took off one of those antifoulers, it's running like the top that it is... -- plugs will only start missing maybe a month or two later once they're all working-- its just that during warm up-- then they foul faster, as it runs pretty rough until that choke opens up.

. and lately this week all it's been doing is being started each day and not driven due to 1 flat and 1 tire showing steel threads... that I haven't had the chance to fix (doesn't bother me yet, don't get license back till Oct 8th).. which brings up another question--- How hard would it be to mount my own tires doing it the old fashioned way? My grandfather who's 82 and still in the mechanic business says he could probably mount a tire to a rim manually in 20 minutes or less if he had the tools still. I'm getting tired of paying someone all this money to put a tire on the rim. I'll save $80 car-round and mount the things myself if i knew it weren't a pain in the butt.

09-30-2004 03:39 PM

docvette

Engine

Doc here

Are you saying this engine was fresh in Nov?

If so you (or your re-builder) Did something Wayy wrong...

You SHOULD not need seals on less than a year old engine, even if it sat for the most part of almost a year.

If it was running anti fowler's before, and you still have them in place, something is NOT right.

If you did NOT rebuild the heads, then it's probably time to do so, If you are having fouling issues this bad.

And if this is the case, Seals may not stop the problem at all...though it may slow it up some, you may be looking at new guides too.

Also, it brings to mind your mention of plug wire issues...

you say you can't find "Good" enough plug wires, or they die soon after putting them on.

If your running Anti fowler's your plug is recessed out of the chamber enough not to fire as well or as Efficient it should, Even if you have a "Hot" or high energy Ignition...making it seem like the plugs and wires are going bad sooner than they should...

The slightest change in their resistance (which would go unnoticed is any other car) Would cut fire power...Smooth Idle and performance.

Do a Wet and Dry Compression test, If the numbers are low, then time to think about pulling the heads and sending them into the shop for a Valve R&R...

You could also do Valve seals (something you can do on the car) Then remove the Anti fowler's, and see if BOTH problems go away..before pulling the heads.

Doc

09-30-2004 03:02 PM

Siggy_Freud

Might be time for the heads to be redone. You can do things to counter the problem but eventually you'll want to get it fixed. You might try stepping up 1 heat range in plugs to help keep them clean.

40 bucks for a set of wires isn't much. Most high-quality low resistance wires go for 60-90+ these days.

09-30-2004 01:43 PM

Fragzem

valve seals.. that was it... gotta get some of those..

lol, no, it's not engine time... i just put this one together in November, but it's always had this problem... I just didn't get the chance to find out about it until I put it in the car and never got around to solving it...

If it were engine time......... I've got my ol' 85 305 sittin in the garage that came out of this car... probably wouldn't work as we ripped the computer and its harness out tho...

and yeah, I was talkin about non-foulers...... they actually work pretty good for me, as those are the only plugs I never change..

the problem is usually the 2 middle plugs on the driver side though.... i dried em all off, put a new one in one of those middle cylinders... i think it's #5...

and i can hear that only 1 plug is missing now.... my whole plug set-up is a mess anyway.... i just can't justify 40 for wires and I'm using motocraft plugs (all the same) in a chevy.... they actually seem better than all the champions and ac-delco's that i've put in there; they've lasted the longest.

i only need 2 wires.... 2 that broke a long time ago i replaced with whatever was laying around... one's got the spark plug boot on the distributor LOL!

but hey, it works, and when its not burning oil, it's a dream to drive.

maybe I should just take all the oil out of the damned car, that might fix my oil problem on the plugs!!! hehehe ;-)

Thanks for the answers, gentlemen.

09-30-2004 01:10 PM

Jmark

I think he's talking about the "non-foulers" that are sold to back the plug out of the cylinder some. They kinda work, but it sounds like its engine time.

Mark

09-30-2004 12:19 PM

poncho62

What's this about "extensions"?

Are you saying that the spark plug wire boots are getting oil on them?

Get some new valve cover gaskets..................

09-30-2004 11:40 AM

Siggy_Freud

Well there are only two ways oil can get on your spark plug. One is past the piston rings, and the other is past the valve seals. Oil on the plugs usually means one of the two is leaking. I would venture to say your valve seals are the culprit and allowing oil to drip onto your plugs while the engine is idle.

09-30-2004 11:29 AM

Fragzem

Oil on 2 plugs

Okay, simple question-- I searched the forums and only came up with people getting really BAD problems with oil and plugs, things like detonation and using octane boosters-- that's not my case.

When you're getting oil on a plug... (all my plugs get oil with my 75 SBC 350).. but 2 usually get it the worst. I would put those plug extensions on them to avoid this but... the headers don't allow that where I have the problem.

If I remember, oil on a plug is a simple problem meaning a gasket or a seal or something in the valve covers.. what is it again?